Rand Paul’s wife, Dr. Kelley Paul, eviscerated the media and the neighbor who attacked her husband in an opinion piece for CNN.
Senator Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, was the victim of a vicious attack on November 3rd. His neighbor reportedly tackled him from behind and left him with six broken ribs, three displaced ribs, a pleural effusion, and pneumonia.
Kelley writes in CNN that since the attack, her husband has not taken a single breath without pain.
“As his wife, I have been distraught over seeing him suffer like this,” she says. “There have been several nights where I had my hand on my phone ready to call 911 when his breathing became so labored it was terrifying.”
Sen. Paul’s neighbor, Rene Albert Boucher, has plead not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge and his attorney has continued to argue that the attack was the result of a “long-running disagreement” over yard maintenance.
Kelley Paul slammed speculation by the media that the attack was over a trivial neighborly dispute involving things like lawn trimmings or gardening. One article in The New Yorker suggested the attack could be blamed on a rank smell coming from some gourds in Sen. Paul’s yard.
“It is incredibly hurtful that some news outlets have victimized Rand a second time as he struggles to recover, delighting in hateful headlines like ‘Not A Perfect Neighbor,’ and concocting theories about an ‘ongoing dispute,’ based on nothing more than speculation from an attention-seeking person with no knowledge of anything to do with us,” Kelley asserts.
Kelley explains that she and her husband have not spoken to the neighbor in ten years beyond a polite wave.
“The only ‘dispute’ existed solely in the attacker’s troubled mind,” she says.
She continues, “This has been a terrible experience; made worse by the media’s gleeful attempts to blame Rand for it, ridiculing him for everything from mowing his own lawn to composting.”
Kelley Paul ends her piece by regretting that Sen. Paul will be unable to partake in their usual Thanksgiving traditions of golf and touch football, but gives thanks to her “supportive family” and the “encouragement and prayers of hundreds of kind and thoughtful people.”
